Adeus

We are decompressing a bit on the way home, visiting our friends Mark and Kathy Wood who are are serving in Capetown, South Africa. What a beautiful place it is--and ever so civilized. It was our visit to them on their first mission to Africa that helped us begin to think about similarly serving.

This concludes my entries to our mission blog--though Debbie may yet augment the record.
Anyone wishing to communicate with us may always reach us at osbornds@gmail.com
If you have followed this blog and are unknown to us, we would enjoy hearing who you are and what brought you to this place.

If any would like to attend our homecoming addresses, the service will be broadcast at this address: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/fairbanks-stake-3rd-ward at 1:00 pm Alaska Daylight Time (that would be 3pm in Utah and 2:00 pm in California) on Sunday, april 21. I warn you however, that the experience may be tedious.

Our mission experience has been wonderful beyond words. We have been profoundly altered by what we have seen, done, and felt.   We are returning to considerable uncertainty but do so without regrets and are simply grateful for the opportunity that we had to forget ourselves for a time and serve.

Adeus.

Elder Toby Osborn

O Fim

A brief report on our last day of missionary service. It was a wonderful day, leaving us exhausted at its end as we enjoyed an 11pm magnificent restaurant meal with President Kretly in Maputo (magnificent being defined as anything beyond the twin dishes of pizza or half chicken that dominate Quelimane menus.  I write this in the wee morning hours here while Debbie sleeps and I find myself unable to do so. I am weepy as I review the day and the previous 18 months and contemplate change.  Herewith is our day in (mostly) pictures:

This is Sonia Gusse in her very simple wedding dress--that we purchased on our recent trip to South Africa.  We thought her radiantly beautiful today--she thought so too and asked if she could please wear the dress home  to show her neighbors.  We broke our own rule and agreed, fully knowing that the dress  might never recover from an afternoon in a mud hut.

Walking down the aisle of our little chapel as Debbie plays Pachabel Canon on our little keyboard.   Our new branch president, Abel Mabunda, has replaced me very well (well, I did write his remarks and counsel today) but I admit that I was just a bit sad to not be performing this wedding.  I have had a pivotal role here but I think that my absence will not be noticed particularly acutely.  Debbie however, on the keyboard (among other contributions), is where the pain will be felt.  The music I fear is going to fall into serious decline.  We have no one here who can carry a tune.  She alone has kept our services from bedlam.

We put on what has become our traditional little wedding, with a nice cake and punch--which is generally far beyond the resources of any of our newlyweds and generally costs us about US$50 and a little bit of time for decorating.   Not much, but it has been a nice touch here we think.

Our young friends Aissa and Edma -- and Debbie serving cake in the background.  As we left town today, We left provisions in place to fund the college education of Aissa (thanks be to those who have contributed to the Osborn Literacy Foundation).

The baptism of Jojo and Sonia followed immediately the wedding.  This was a family who only required about 5 weeks to prepare for baptism (which is extraordinarily unusual here).  They had been prepared so well by their association with recent converts (Paula and Julio).  When we got to them, they had already made the decision that they really wanted that which they had seen their friends receive -they wanted to see the very same changes and happiness in their life.  It made it quite easy for even  mediocre teachers like us to lead them the rest of the way.

After the wedding and baptism we took home as many who could be packed into the truck.  You can see that Jojo sought and received important fashion and color coordination advice from me in dressing for his wedding.  The tie was mine--the bright lime green shirt was not.

We have been hugged and kissed and praised and feted far beyond our expectations and merits. (I am only now getting the hang of the European two-cheek kiss thing that has its own cultural norms here). We had people stopping by throughout the day as we packed and many just wanting a little bit more contact.  We have become one of them and it has been a rich experience beyond my ability to express.

This was a good day and way to finish our our mission.

We received a very nice note from Elder Andersen of the Twelve today--notable in the apostolic correspondence is not particularly common for the likes of me.

As we prepared to board our flight out of Quelimane last night, we met Elders de Oliveira and Bender arriving.  It actually was a bit bittersweet to be seeing them and missing the association with a new set of missionaries.

 We will travel just a bit on the way home (using the term home loosely since we have none). We will "report" on our mission in the Sacrament Meeting of the Fairbanks third ward in about 11 days.  Interestingly, their services are broadcast on the Internet and any who wish to listen in may do so.  I will post the time and website.
I cannot express sufficiently what a wonderful and life-altering experience this has been.

So long, farewell....

We had a nice surprise tonight, the branch put together a little "goodbye"  dinner.  We thought it was just visiting, but they brought authentic Mozambique food that was even edible, had sweet gifts for us and we took a million pictures and had hugs till I couldn't stand up any more.  It was just plain fun and held outside in our driveway.  Here are a few of the fun moments we will always remember.


Toby received an African cane carved from ebony.  They joked it was because
he was old, but he was told that royalty uses a cane as a symbol of power.



I am wearing my capulana honoring Josina Michael.  Today is Dia das Mulheres  in memory
of her death.  She was a soldier in the fight for independence and wife of the first president--she showed women they could be strong and was a great example.  .

The African version of Relief Society!



The young women here are not shy about eating.  They are always hungry and beautiful!



This is transfer week, so we have only three Elders, Elder Kelly on the right is being transferred
in the morning to an area in Beira, so Toby will get the 3am call to drive him to the bus station.



Parting advice to Joaqina, an investigator who lives very close to the church.  She wants to get
baptized so very much, she told me tonight, but needs to get married.  Her family of girls always
come to church with her and I really hope she will continue strong and join the church.

"Everything is difficult, you just have to make a decision

Our church services today resembled a funeral in many ways--though the endless eulogies delivered over the "Casal Osborn" were likely kinder than any I will receive in English upon my death. It was a very nice, albeit emotional, day. It was the first time in our eighteen months here that I have not been responsible for the proceedings of our services, so I sat amongst our converts and investigators while Debbie played the keyboard. Debbie and I were given a mandatory slot in the otherwise ad hoc testimony meeting. Debbie gave half of her remarks in english and half in Portuguese.  I muddled through in Portuguese which I admit has become my "go to" language.  I don't necessarily speak well, but I  do speak very fluently and it comes out a little bit easier than does english.

 

I was asked to teach in priesthood meeting today and  couldn't help but compare the assembled group with what we began with a year and a half ago.  It is still not big--but it is becoming a respectable looking group of priesthood holders.



It only looks like I am directing music.  I assure you that I was expounding sound doctrine.

This afternoon, we were at the home of recent converts Paula and Julio and were talking about the live session of LDS general conference that we intended to broadcast on Sunday night (Sunday morning in the states).  Since it is a 4.5 kilometer walk to the chapel from their home and they had already done it once today, I expressed regret at the distance and difficulty and the sad fact that they would miss an opportunity to hear the prophet live.  Paula looked at me with a pitying expression ("you poor stupid man") and said this: "Elder Osborn, everything good is difficult, you just have to make a decision to do it".  Paula is unbelievably poor by the world's standards and also uneducated but a wonderfully wise woman who impresses us more every time we meet with her.
They, along with about thirty five others made it to our living room to watch the Sunday "morning" session of general conference.  Words cannot describe how delighted they were to hear Elder Andersen's remarks about Mozambique and the challenge of marriage here.  He even showed the marriage pictures that I have showed to members and investigators here (and posted on this blog months ago).  The room was abuzz with a feeling of satisfaction that one of the Twelve was aware of them.  Our investigator couple, Jojo and Sonia were also in attendance (five and a half kilometers each way) and were amazed that an apostle was talking about the very challenge and issue that they have been wrestling with for the past months.  After some effort I found an email address for Elder Andersen to give him some feedback from a Mozambican branch.   I must admit, that when he said, "well, you may not be in Mozambique. but..." it made me weep--not for the first time today. as I considered my dear friends and "children" around me who were indeed in Mozambique--truly "home" for us rather than some distant and exotic location as it likely seemed to the vast majority of his audience.

More than a walk on the beach

Notwithstanding my claims that this week is the busiest of our mission and one that is leaving us exhausted at the close of every day--we did sneak out this morning with most of the young women of the branch for a little beach activity. It was a lot of fun. We arrived in a rain squall that dissipated and left us with a sunny and beautiful day.

Debbie always says that she isn't going to go swimming--but the ocean calls to her as it does to me (well, maybe just a little bit less).  She looks like their mother or older sister doesn't she?

To keep the girls from basking too much in the admiration of lots of single (fisher) men, I devised competitions worthy of a beautiful day on the beach. 

The girls started singing this song somewhat spontaneously.  They have never been to "camp" nor anything like it--but this song certainly has the feel of one that should have been learned over marshmallows.





I spent a bit of time this week doing car repairs--trying not to leave a wreck for whoever uses our little truck after us.  The body of the vehicle has actually torn from the stress of the canopy over the truck bed as we bounce and contort over the bumps and caverns in the roads here.  We got it welded up (again) and I did the painting myself.



Now here is a story for you.  This is a hippo tooth.  It was given to us by Elder Bradford, a fine missionary who went home on Friday.  He also took a larger one home.  I heard from the mission president that when departing, Elder Bradford's luggage was x-rayed and he was detained for trafficking in animal parts--and hippo teeth are specifically among the prohibited exports.  He spent hours and hours in custody with the mission president trying to secure his release.  In the end, he was not executed summarily but did have to pay a 110,000 meticais fine in order to get his passport back and obtain permission to leave the country.  That is about US$3,600.  I have decided to pack the hippo tooth in Debbie's luggage rather than my own (actually, I gifted it to Joyce, who is my favorite African eight year old).

Though our pre-mission life was filled with frequent dinner guests--we have not hosted to many Mozambican people for dinner in our home here.  However, before leaving Quelimane, we had wanted to have Amizade and his family over.  It turned out very nice (with our fashionable pick plastic cups).  We have eaten at Amizade's and Lurde's a number of times during our time here.

tick tick tick

We had our mission president and his wife with us this entire last weekend and we asked him if there was any specific counsel that he wanted to give us about our last week of service--anything in particular he wanted us to do or accomplish.  President and Sister Kretly both suggested that we relax a bit.  I suspected at the time that that might not be a realistic expectation--and so it is that this is appearing to be the fullest and busiest week of our mission.  There is so much to do.  We seem to have a full teaching schedule with investigator families and daily multiple training sessions with new and existing branch leaders--and sometime we will actually have to tackle the task of cleaning up and packing to leave. Speaking of the new leadership, it is impressive for me to see the mantle of leadership settle upon Abel, my replacement as Branch President. I can see him begin to perceive the branch differently, through the eyes of one responsible for everyone's welfare. I was worried, but believe that he will do well.

This is Sonia, pictured above with her five children and below just with her baby.  Husband Jojo is off camera, and frankly not quite as cute as all of the rest.  They have been our major teaching project for the last few weeks--they were well prepared to hear the gospel and are a wonderful family.  They live further away from the church than anyone else who attends, but they walk the five plus kilometers to and from without complaint.  It is with some hesitation that I share the following experience, but it was an important faith-building one for this family.  The baby has been very sick for a week--crying constantly and remaining awake screaming all night, which puts a crimp in everyone's style when you live in a small two-room mud hut.  We came to their home on Monday with the intention of giving the baby a blessing.  The baby was out, being walked by the oldest daughter for a bit, but we found seven year-old daughter number two on the floor in a semi conscious state where she had reportedly been for a few days with some unknown illness.  I placed my hands on her head and gave her a blessing to be healed and knew with certainty that she would be.  Debbie then diagnosed the baby as having an ear infection and we took him and the mother Sonia to the farmacia to get medicine (penicillin and a decongestant).  When we returned, the other sick daughter was up and about.  We returned the next day (yesterday) and both children were fine. 

After perhaps just a bit too much financial intervention on our part, Jojo and Sonia "opened the marriage process" in the government registry yesterday which initiates a seven day waiting period before a marriage can be performed.  Conceivably, this family might be able to be married and baptized in the hours prior to our departure from Quelimane, but that would require a little bit of governmental flexibility and otherwise good timing all around--so I doubt it will happen.  But they have been a great family to teach, anxious to make life changes and commitments.  They have also introduced the gospel to their close neighbors who we are also teaching.

Sonia is an attractive woman with high cheekbones that are indicative of an ethnic heritage from elsewhere.  She is wearing of course the ever-present Mozambican capulana to carry the baby.  It can be switched from back to front to enable the baby to nurse without interrupting any of mom's activities.

This is Jazila and daughters Alura and Joyce.  They are such fun.  She is our very dynamic primary president.  They love having Family home Evenings with us--and we spent time doing so on Monday night.  Alura, a beautiful 15 year old girl, made the cake.



Debbie and Sister Kretly.  Sister Kretly and her husband, though Brazilian, speak fairly good English which makes their visits a little more enjoyable for Debbie.

Wild, Wonderful Weekend

This has been a wonderful but exhausting weekend.  I arrived home on Thursday afternoon on the same plane as President and Sister Kretly.  What follows are pictures of our zone meeting, weddings, baptisms and the re-organization of the branch leadership in Quelimane.  On this Easter Sunday, we have had a lot of emotions as we prepare to leave in a week.  Here are some pictures that show the wonderful growth of the church here and our great missionaries.





This is zone conference on Friday.  Lots of good training about the growth of the mission, importance of rules in the mission and teaching skills.



Darling girls all dressed up for their parents wedding on Saturday.



No she isn't a child bride, Nadia is actually 21, but it was a little hard to believe
that in this dress.  Marta, in blue, speaks some English and had glitter make-up on
and was so excited about getting married.



President Kretly married these two couples and an hour later, we held their baptisms.
Thanks to a missionary mom for rings and new ties for the grooms!



This is our new and improved baptismal font.  It is a swimming pool and this model has been sent
to all the branches in the area.  The stairs are much more stable, but we sort of miss
the old tank with which we had an emotional attachment.



This is the biggest group baptism in Quelimane history. A family with three kids,
a young couple, and the nephew of a new member.  It was fabulous!

Our new branch presidency.  Center, Abel, branch president.  On the left, Rui is
the first counselor, Elder Guanuna on the right is the second
counselor and Rocha remains the secretary.  We also had an entire
presidency for the Elder's Quorum sustained as well, with Amizade as President.




The branch Primary has really grown and in order to facilitate actual
learning, we called two nursery leaders a couple of weeks ago.
Tinoca and Pascoa are wonderful with the kids and Primary runs more
smoothly without their noise.  We moved kids 5 years and younger
into this new class.

Sand getting low in the hourglass

The above video is the Catholic Palm Sunday precession down the main street of Marromeu--directly in front of our church there.  Very colorful and I enjoyed the singing.  It is not a hard thing in Mozambique to come up with palm fronds for this celebration, but I do wonder how my Catholic friend Kelly does this in the icy streets of Fairbanks in March. 
 We (obviously) travelled to Marromeu this past weekend.  Our farewell visit.  I guess it wasn't "we", as Debbie is still stateside.  We have been going there for the last eighteen months and have grown fond of that very out of the way place and its people.  I gave training to members on Saturday (temple preparation), spoke in church on Sunday (repentance) and then spoke to the women of Marromeu in Relief Society (giving the the key to happiness and success--you can buy my book on the subject in a few months).  They are pictured below. It is an interesting group in that all of them speak the local dialect of Sena, and some speak no Portuguese--so I asked someone to translate for me and I simplified my remarks and got the group involved.  I could have sworn that the entire group was breastfeeding babies during my lesson, but counting the babies in the picture, perhaps I am exaggerating the number of breasts I was trying to ignore.

These are the principal non-african women of my life. Left to right, they are: youngest daughter Andrea, eldest Eliana, bride Sister Osborn, and middle daughter Liz.  Debbie has been having a good time with them.  Debbie was more than pleased to get her hair done by someone more competent than I .

Making a visit to a member this evening, I spied these two young children very high up in a palm tree--doing what, I have no idea.

We are putting in a second bathroom for the members right outside the chapel.  The line gets a bit long on Sundays sometimes.  We hired our investigator JoJo to paint (he actually did a very good and careful job). in order to earn money for marriage.  JoJo is an interesting case.  he and his wife are somewhat motivated to get their marriage legalized as they swore off intimate relations when we taught them concerning chastity and marriage--not surprisingly, I notice him working the issue harder than she. 

These are the fine young missionaries of Quelimane, Elders Seoane, Kelly, Bradford, and Guanuna.  I almost hit Elder Guanuna last night when he asked me: "so what's your deal, were you called like REAL missionaries?"  I tried to explain to him that yes, we sort of felt like we were real missionaries. These days there have been a lot of malaria cases, some quite serious, among the missionaries in Maputo down south, but here, which is the malaria capital, we have been free for some time.

An-yŏng-ha-se-yo

Readers of this blog have probably picked up on the tremendous economic problems that afflict Mozambicans.  Here in Quelimane, there is no industrial base which provides employment.  Government, NGOs, retail, and unskilled labor are the choices for employment--and even those jobs are very very hard to come by.  I don't know what the percentage of people unemployed is, but it is very very high here,  probably well above 30%.  In our little branch of the church, we are similarly afflicted.  Too many are unemployed or underemployed.  Some literally cannot put food on the table.  As leader of the flock here, the economics are of grave concern to me on many levels.  We do a lot of praying that people can simply find something to help them pay rent and buy food.
Last week, we had an interesting call.  A man, in halting English, called me from Korea.  His name was Lee (as is the name of 60% of the Koreans I have ever met).  He is LDS and was coming to Quelimane to head the multi-year project to build a new hospital here.  He wondered if I would be able to find workers for him--as he really wanted to employ as many LDS as possible.   Debbie and I had dinner with him this week, and  two days later, my friends Amizade and Rui were drawing salaries far beyond anything previous in their lives (that is $200 per month for Rui which is a modest but very respectable salary here).  Rui in particular was at the end of his financial rope, having lost his job a few months ago.  Brother Lee will take a while to get his project started, but my two counselors are his first employees and will help him get things moving.  He will employ hundreds on the project and we should be able to send our unemployed members to him in impressive numbers.
I have a hard time expressing what a huge blessing this for us here. I am really grateful beyond words.  Our people have been facing impossible circumstances--and suddenly there is some hope for both immediate relief from abject poverty and for some training that might improve their long term economic outlook.  And having spent some time in Quelimane hospitals during the last couple of weeks, we are grateful that a new one is underway.
The blog title, by the way, is a common Korean greeting--which is the only positive thing that I retain from an ill-fated business venture in Seoul many years ago.


I have posed many a young missionary in this spot in front of the Quelimane airport--it was quite sad to put Debbie on a plane.  It is my hope that she will not reevaluate her plan to return in eight days.  Perched upon her suitcase is Flat Stanley, who, as you might be aware, is an assignment of many an elementary school student.  Our assignment is to take many a picture with Flat Stanly, doing interesting things in Africa--and send them to our Granddaughter Amelia in Anchorage.

I was driving down this road today on the way back from a lesson and was flagged down by 10 deaf students from a local school--some of whom have attended church from us before.  I gave them a lift--driving slowly on the rutted roads to not throw them out on their heads. Each school has a different color of uniform, and theirs is this unfortunate red/maroon.

In Memorium

Debbie's father, Kenneth J. Hanni, passed away this week after an injury and precipitous decline.  He lived a good and full life of eighty five years but his passing still has taken Debbie by surprise.  While I had said my  goodbyes to my own mother before the start of our mission, anticipating her passing--Ken's death was not anticipated and has certainly saddened and shaken Debbie.   His obituary can be found at http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/deseretnews/obituary.aspx?n=kenneth-j-hanni&pid=163717116#fbLoggedOut She will return to the states tomorrow for a brief visit with family--returning to Mozambique to complete the last couple weeks of our mission together.  Our mission president has given her the option of not having to return to Mozambique for that brief period (the economics of this current plan are not particularly attractive) but Debbie will return to join me for our final bit of work.  After being together 24/7 for the last 17 months, it seems very strange to contemplate being alone for a week.

 

Kudus to all

We have had a wonderful few days in something of a break from our normal Quelimane life. On Monday last, we caught a plane in the evening down to Maputo--leaving the northern heat and humidity for a time. After spending the night in a borrowed senior missionary apartment, we borrowed President Kretly's little Kia and started driving for Johannesburg. There, we met up with our friends Abel and Adozinda, the first couple to join the church in Quelimane--and we accompanied them to the temple, me acting as translator for many of the proceedings there.

Do we looked changed from eighteen months ago?  A bit more worn and weary perhaps.

There is something about cute black children in white that is very very appealing.

We saw a glimpse of western civilization in South Africa. The stores were full of products to which we used to be accustomed and there were no potholes nor chasms in any of the roads. It was a very nice break. We had dinner one night with Elder Renlund and his wife Ruth, who prepared the most outstanding fresh salmon dinner. I'm afraid that I have forgotten what good food tastes like. Wonderful food and nice to visit with them for the evening.

On our return drive the next day, we got a call from the airline telling us that our flight home to Quelimane had been significantly delayed--we took the extra time and stayed overnight at Kruger National Park (where I had to shoo Kudus (not to be mistaken for the candy bar nor congratulations) away from the door of our little chalet before I could enter). We were able to spend five or six hours hours on a self-driven safari the next day before heading back to Mocambique.

We found that the English spoken in South Africa was quite difficult to understand.  It was almost comical that Debbie and I were constantly addressing people and responding to them in Portuguese--only after getting alot of blank looks would we recognize our mistake.

I think the kudu is a beautiful animal--among the larger of the plains game--beautiful horns and coloration and quite plentiful in South Africa.  A bit smaller than an Alaskan moose or an Eland--but not by much.

The break was a nice one and the temple experience with friends a wonderful one--but in the end, we found that we missed Quelimane and our work here--and were happy to make it back home.